There are a wide variety of advertising techniques well known in the art including radio and television commercials, newspaper advertisements, and direct marketing, e.g., telemarketing. Since such advertisements are used to convey information to as many people as possible, they can be relatively expensive and inefficient. Generally, sellers of goods and services strive to maximize their return on advertising expenditures. Sellers desire to convey knowledge of their products to as many potential consumers as possible. More particularly, sellers of various goods and services desire to contact consumers that have a desire or need for the particular goods or services provided by the seller.
However, it can be difficult and expensive to identify those consumers having an interest in a particular product or service offered by a particular seller. And even if such consumers can be identified, it can be relatively difficult to get the consumer to focus on an advertisement. In addition, consumers typically have no motivation to identify themselves as being interested in a particular type of item or service.
It would, therefore, be desirable to transmit messages to consumers that have expressed a desire or need for goods and services from sellers that provide the desired goods and services. It would further be desirable to provide messages to mobile users when they are proximate a seller for which the user desires to receive information.